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Comment by code_duck | Hacker News Reader

I hear this a lot. Which attractive positions can I apply for where my competition will be people who can't code a CSS rule for a class versus an ID? Are we really trapped in a competency bubble on sites like HN and don't realize the vast incompetence of the majority of computer professionals?

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I read about (and have interviewed a few) "developers who can't develop". Is this phenomenon unique to the software industry, since it has no formal licensing boards and the technology changes so rapidly? I can't imagine doctors who don't know medicine or lawyers who don't know the law.

The lesson is that interviewers must give coding questions even to "senior" developers. See, for example, the "FizzBuzz" interview question:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...

I've run into doctors, specifically a psychiatrist or two, who have not kept up with changes in their fields. Considering psychiatry is fairly fast moving, that's somewhat like if one went to college in the 80s and learned COBOL and DOS, and glossed over everything since then. Definitely harder to get away with doing that as a lawyer, though!

To remain certified, MDs must taking Continuing Medical Education classes every year and a recertification exam every 6-7 years (I think). I believe attorneys have some similiar requirements

> I can't imagine doctors who don't know medicine or lawyers who don't know the law.

Oh there's plenty of quacks and shysters out there. I've met some of them.

I've had a teacher who didn't know here subject (Chemistry), and opened the textbook to answer very basic questions that I (merely interested in Chemistry, haven't studied it) could have answered without.

I was very shocked because in Germany you actually have to a good part of the Chemistry studies at University to be allowed to teach it. I wonder if she forgot it all in the mean time, or if she had gamed the system somehow.

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